Steam Gaming Service Coming to Mac in April

Who says the game selection for the Apple Macintosh platform sucks? Lots of people, actually: the OS has a pretty grim track record when it comes to games. But things have certainly been changing on that front over the past few years.

Who says the game selection for the Apple Macintosh platform sucks? Lots of people, actually: the OS has a pretty grim track record when it comes to games. But things have certainly been changing on that front over the past few years.

The Apple OS is about to make another bold step into the world of measured gaming respectability. Valve, the company behind online game-distribution service Steam, will be bringing that service to the Mac in April along with a number of big titles, including Left 4 Dead and Portal 2.

"We are treating the Mac as a tier-1 platform so all of our future games will release simultaneously on Windows, Mac and the Xbox 360," Steam's director of development said of the move. "Updates for the Mac will be available simultaneously with the Windows updates. Furthermore, Mac and Windows players will be part of the same multiplayer universe, sharing servers, lobbies and so forth. We fully support a heterogeneous mix of servers and clients. The first Mac Steam client will be the new generation currently in beta testing on Windows."

PC customers who have already purchased a game for the PC will get access to the Mac version, as well.

Brian Heater has worked at a number of tech pubs, including Engadget, Laptop, and PCMag (where he served as Senior Editor). Most recently, he was as the Managing Editor of TechTimes.com. His writing has appeared in Spin, Wired, Playboy, Entertainment Weekly, The Onion, Boing Boing, Publishers Weekly, The Daily Beast and various other publications. He hosts the weekly Boing Boing interview podcast RiYL, has appeared as a regular NPR contributor and shares his Queens apartment with a rabbit named Lucy.
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